STREET  CAR  STRIKE 


MUNICIPAL 

OWNERSHIP 

Addresses  by 

WILLIAM  PRENTISS 


<*  C 


NOTE. 

The  first  of  these  speeches  was  delivered  during  the  street¬ 
car  strike  of  the  employees  of  the  Chicago  City  Railway 
Co.  The  meeting  was  held  at  Tattersalls,  the  Seventh 
Regiment  Armory,  Sunday  afternoon,  November  22,  1903. 
There  were  in  the  hall  at  the  time  about  15,000  people,  and 
nearly  as  many  more  on  the  outside  adjacent  thereto. 

The  second  address  was  delivered  in  the  Council  Cham¬ 
ber  of  the  City  Hall.  There  were  present,  besides  the 
Transportation  Committee,  about  one  hundred  other  citi¬ 
zens.  This  was  December  7,  1903,  the  first  day  of  the 
hearing  before  the  committee. 


V 


THE  CITY  RAILWAY  STRIKE  AND  MUNICI¬ 
PAL  OWNERSHIP. 

SPEECH  OF  WILLIAM  PRENTISS,  AT  TAT- 
TERS ALL’S,  CHICAGO,  SUNDAY,  NO¬ 
VEMBER  22,  1903. 

Mr.  Chairman,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen : 

You  know  as  well  as  I  what  brought  you  here  this 
afternoon.  You  are  in  the  midst  of  one  of  the  most 
important  struggles  in  the  history  of  this  country,  or 
any  other.  On  one  side  are  millions  of  ill-gotten  wealth 
and  on  the  other  are  justice  and  manhood  and  woman¬ 
hood.  It  is  not  a  contest  merely  between  the  Chicago 
City  Railway  and  Division  Number  260  of  the  Street 
Railway  men.  Organized  capital  has  seen  fit  to  make 
this  a  vital  contest,  and  has  arrayed  against  the  work¬ 
ing  men  and  the  common  people  of  this  country  all  the 
forces  that  money  can  get  together. 

I  want  to  call  your  attention — and,  through  you,  the 
attention  of  the  people  of  this  city — to  what  the  Chi¬ 
cago  City  Railway  Company  is.  It  was  the  first  street 
railway  corporation  in  Chicago.  It  began  with  almost 
nothing — one  hundred  thousand  dollars  capital,  a  mile 
of  road,  twenty-five  horses  and  four  cars.  From  that 


a 


it  has  become  the  wealthiest  street  railway  corporation 
that  ever  existed  in  the  world,  and  every  dollar  of  that 
added  wealth  came  out  of  the  men,  women  and  chil¬ 
dren  of  Chicago. 

I  have  here  a  little  book  (holding  up  a  book).  It 
is  not  a  book  issued  by  an  advocate  of  municipal  own¬ 
ership.  It  is  not  a  book  issued  by  laboring  men.  It 
is  a  book  issued  by  the  Civic  Federation  of  Chicago —  > 
the  aristocratic  economists  of  this  city.  Among  the 
members  of  it  were  such  men  as  Franklin  H.  Head, 
Franklin  MacVeagh,  Edwin  Burritt  Smith,  Newton  A. 
Partridge,  and  others  like  them.  It  was  issued  about 
two  years  ago — in  1901 — and  it  gives  a  history  of  the 
street  railways  of  Chicago.  It  obtained  the  facts  from 
the  books  of  the  street  railway  corporations,  which  for 
the  first  time  opened  them  to  anyone  outside  of  the 
companies;  and  the  Civic  Federation  employed  experts 
to  examine  the  books.  I  wish  every  citizen  in  the  City 
of  Chicago  could  read  this  book.  It  would  show  them 
that  in  sixteen  years — from  1882  to'  1898' — there  was 
distributed  in  dividends  to  the  stockholders  of  the  Chi¬ 
cago  City  Railway  Company  over  thirty-seven  millions 
of  dollars;  that  upon  the  capital  invested  they  received 
annually  for  those  sixteen  years  over  44  per  cent  interest 
in  the  way  of  profits.  , 

Now  what  has  this  Railway  Company  done  in  return 

for  this?  You  may  know  what  we  lawyers  all  know, 
that  the  decisions  of  our  Supreme  Court  are  reported 
in  volumes.  Every  decision  is  written  out  and  is  pub¬ 
lished  in  a  book,  and  in  Volume  191  of  these  Illinois 
Reports  there  is  a  very  interesting  decision.  You  can 
get  the  Report  in  the  Public  Library  or  in  the  Law 
Institute  or  in  the  office  of  almost  any  lawyer.  I  wish 


3 


that  the  people  of  this  city  could  read  this  decision  in 
that  Report.  It  is  found  on  page  528  (Vol.  191),  the 
title  of  the  case  being'  State  Board  of  Equalization  v. 
the  People  of  the  State  of  Illinois. 

In  1900  the  school  teachers  of  this  city  discovered 
that  the  public  service  corporations  of  Chicago  were 
not  paying  taxes  upon  their  capital  stock,  including  fran¬ 
chises  ;  that  all  they  had  paid  and  were  paying  was  upon 
a  comparatively  small  amount  of  tangible  property 
which  they  possessed;  that  upon  their  most  valuable 
property — their  franchises — they  were  paying  practically 
nothing.  So  the  teachers,  under  the  leadership  of  two 
of  the  ablest  and  truest  women  of  this  or  any  other 
country  (Catherine  Goggin  and  Margaret  A.  Haley), 
proceeded  to  examine  into  it.  They  went  before  the 
State  Board  of  Equalization,  whose  duty  under  the  law 
was  to  assess  this  capital  stock,  including  franchises, 
and  informed  them  what  thev  had  found. 

This  State  Board  of  Equalization  is  the  servant  of 
the  people.  You  elect  that  Board,  and  the  members  are 
sworn  to  obey  the  law  and  perform  their  duties  under 
it,  and  yet  for  years  twenty  or  more  of  these  great 
public  service  corporations  in  this  city  had  paid  prac¬ 
tically  no  tax  upon  the  great  amount  of  wealth  they 
possessed.  At  the  head  of  the  list  of  these  criminal 
tax-dodgers  was  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company. 
For  nearly  twenty  years  that  Railway  Company  paid  no 
tax  of  any  consequence  upon  its  capital  stock — during 
almost  the  entire  life  of  the  franchise  which  it  obtained 
in  1883.  It,  with  other  rich  public  service  corporations 
in  this  city,  had  yearly  gone  down  to  the  State  Board 
of  Equalization  at  Springfield  and  “persuaded"  that 
body  in  the  way  they  know  so  well  to  relieve  them  of 
their  just  taxes.  That  corporation  has  not  on  the  aver¬ 
age  for  twenty  years  paid  more  than  about  one-twenti¬ 
eth  of  the  tax  that  it  should  have  paid.  For  every 


4 


twenty  dollars  that  was  due  the  people  in  taxes  it  only 
paid  one. 

Now,  why  do  I  speak  of  this?  I  will  tell  you  why: 
Does  the  working  man  who  owns  a  little  home  or  has 
a  little  personal  property  escape  taxation?  (Cries  of 
“No,  no.”)  He  pays  every  dollar  of  the  taxes  law¬ 
fully  due  from  him,  and  often  much  more.  And  yet, 
what  have  you  seen  in  this  city  recently?  You  have 
seen  that  lawless  corporation,  the  Chicago  City  Rail¬ 
way  Company,  that  has  failed  and  refused  to  pay  its 
just  taxes  for  years,  having  appropriated  for  its  exclu¬ 
sive  use  one-half  of  the  entire  police  force  of  this  city, 
while  the  honest,  law-abiding  citizens  of  this  city,  who 
pay  their  taxes,  have  been  compelled  to  go  without  police 
protection  entirely  during  the  last  ten  days.  And  this 
ip.  order  that  this  lawless  corporation  should  have  the 
police  force  of  the  city  used  to  run  its  street  cars  for  it. 

I  concede  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  executive  of  this 
city  to  keep  the  peace;  there  is  no  doubt  about  that;  and 
no  law-abiding  citizen  wants  the  Mayor  to  do  anything 
else;  but  I  submit,  is  it  not  his  duty  equally  to  keep  the 
burglar  from  the  home  of  the  honest  citizen,  and  to 
protect  the  honest  citizen  who  may  be  walking  to  or 
from  his  home  at  night  free  from  being  attacked  by 
highwaymen?  (Cries  of  “That’s  right.”)  Isn’t  that 
his  duty  as  much  as  it  is  to  send  the  police  force  to 
protect  and  help  a  lawless  corporation  that  hasn’t  paid 
its  just  taxes  in  twenty  years?  (Loud  applause.) 

Now,  who  are  these  policemen?  Who  pays  them? 
The  tax-payers  of  Chicago  pay  them.  The  Chicago 
City  Railway  doesn’t  pay  them.  Yet  practically  one- 
half  of  the  entire  police  force  of  the  city  is  used  to  pro¬ 
tect  and  guard  its  property,  while  the  honest,  tax-paying, 
law-abiding  citizens  of  Chicago  have  to  defend  them¬ 
selves,  single-handed  and  alone,  against  burglary  and  rob- 


s 


bery  and  every  other  crime  that  may  be  committed  in 
the  community.  (Loud  and  continued  applause.) 

I  agree  with  Mayor  Harrison  that  it  is  his  duty  to 
uphold  the  law,  keep  the  peace  and  protect  life  and 
property,  but  the  honest  working  man  and  the  honest 
citizen  have  the  same  right  to  be  protected  as  a  big  rail¬ 
road  corporation.  (Cries  of  “That’s  right,”  and  loud 
applause.)  Another  thing — when  you  get  into  a  quar¬ 
rel  with  your  neighbor  the  law  doesn’t  step  in  and  help 
the  great  big  fellow  lick  the  little  one,  does  it?  (Cries 
of  “No,  sir”).  The  law  makes  both  of  you  keep  the 
peace,  and  then  it  says  to  you  “Go  to  the  courts  to  settle 
or  arbitrate  your  difficulties:”  (cries  of  “Gives  justice  to 
both”).  The  law  says  “Go  to  the  courts  and  settle  your 
difficulties  or  arbitrate  them;  we  cannot  take  sides  be¬ 
tween  you.”  But  here  is  a  controversy  between  this 
railroad  company  and  its  employes,  and  the  employes 
say,  “Come  to  court,  let’s  arbitrate  this  trouble  between 
us;  let’s  settle  it  as  men  should  always  be  willing  to 
settle  troubles  between  themselves.’’  The  men  have  pro¬ 
posed  every  form  of  arbitration.  They  said  to  this  street 
railway  corporation  long  before  this  strike  commenced, 
“We  will  pick  one  man,  you  pick  another  man;  let  those 
two  select  a  third,  and  we  will  submit  our  case  to  them, 
and  will  abide  by  their  decision.”  And  they  said  more: 
The  men  said,  ‘IWe  want  the  investigation  to  be  public. 
We  want  the  people  of  Chicago  and  the  press  of  Chicago 
to  know  all  about  this  controversy,  and  to  judge  between 
the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company  and  its  employes.” 
But  the  Street  Car  Company  said,  “No,  we  won’t  do 
that;  we  won’t  arbitrate.’5.  They  said:  “We  will  settle 
our  way  or  not  at  all”  The  State  Board  of  Arbitration, 
as  was  its  duty  under  the  law,  intervened,  and  the  street 
car  employes  said,  “We  will  leave  it  to  the  State  Board 


6 


of  Arbitration  to  settle.'  But  the  Company  said,  “No,” 
again  and  again.  Then  when  the  strike  began,  Mr.  Bliss 
and  Mr.  Hamilton,  the  General  Counsel  and  the  Presi¬ 
dent  of  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company,  went 
straightway  to  the  Mayor  of  the  city  and  demanded  po¬ 
lice  protection  for  their  cars  (cries  of  “They  got  it). 
They  had  said,  “We  won’t  arbitrate;  we  won’t  settle  this 
difficulty  in  a  peaceable  way;  we  won’t  settle  it  as  honest 
men  ought  to  settle  it";  but  now  they  said,  “We  demand 
that  you,  Mr.  Mayor,  take  the  police  force — all  of  it,  if 
necessary — to  protect  our  property  in  this  city"  (cries  of 
“and  got  the  city’s  protection’’).  And  this  demand  was 
acceded  to. 

Now,  gentlemen,  what  is  the  situation?  Here  is  a 
corporation  that  has  been  getting  nickels  out  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  continuously  ever  since  1859  until  it  has  made  great 
fortunes  for  its  stockholders.  It  has  refused  to  treat 
fairly  with  its  employes;  it  has  refused  to  pay  its  just 
taxes ;  it  has  so  far  as  it  could  brought  chaos  in  the  City 
of  Chicago ;  it  has  opened  the  way  to  the  burglar  and 
the  robber  and  other  criminals  in  one-half  of  the  City  of 
Chicago.  And  yet,  in  the  face  of  all  this,  and  more,  it 
has  the  audacity  to  say  to  the  Mayor  and  City  Council 
of  Chicago,  “Give  me  another  twenty  years’  privilege  to 
rob  and  outrage  the  people  of  Chicago."  (Loud  ap¬ 
plause.  ) 

I  hold  in  my  hand  a  book — you  see  the  size  of  it — 
nearly  a  foot  long,  and  eight  inches  wide;  it  has  sixty- 
seven  pages  in  it.  What  do  you  suppose  this  is  ?  It  is 
a  proposed  ordinance  for  the  Chicago  City  Railway 
Company.  This  is  what  this  Chicago  City  Railway  Com¬ 
pany  is  asking  of  your  servants,  the  Mayor  and  the  City 
Council  of  this  city.  After  months  and  months  of  nego¬ 
tiation  with  the  Street  Railway  Company,  last  week  this 


7 


ordinance  was  presented  by  tiie  sub-committee  of  the 
Transportation  Committee  to  the  full  committee  as  a 
tentative  ordinance.  This  is  the  ordinance  that  the  Chi¬ 
cago  City  Railway  Company  is  to  get  from  your  servants 
and  mine.  (Cries  of  “No,  no.”)  Why,  do  you  suppose 
that  our  public  officials  would  throw  away  all  their  val¬ 
uable  time?  Do  you  suppose  that  the  City  of  Chicago 
would  hire  two  high-priced  lawyers — Mr.  Edwin  Bur- 
ritt  Smith  and  Mr.  John  C.  Mathis — and  give  them  big 
pay,  and  that  they  would  work  out  and  produce  (spend¬ 
ing  months  of  valuable  time)  and  print  a  document  like 
this  if  they  did  not  intend  to  put  it  through?  Our  ser¬ 
vants,  our  representatives,  have  printed  this  at  our  ex¬ 
pense.  They  hired  the  lawyers,  Mr.  Smith  and  Mr. 
Mathis,  at  our  expense,  and  these  aldermen  are  paid  out 
of  the  City  Treasury.  They  have  labored  and  brought 
forth  this  document  for  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Com¬ 
pany.  How  much  do  you  suppose  this  is  worth?  It  is 
worth  at  least  fifty  millions  of  dollars — and  General 
Manager  McCulloch  calls  it  <(our  franchise.”  Now,  I 
want  to  know  if  this  is  going  to  be  permitted  in  this  city 
(cries  of  “No,  no”)  ?  This  Street  Railway  Company, 
if  it  had  not  felt  sure  that  it  was  going  to  get  this  fran¬ 
chise,  would  not  have  dared  to  have  forced  this  strike  on 
Number  260.  It  assumed  that  as  it  had  been  lawless 
from  the  time  it  was  created :  that  as  it  had  heretofore 
gone  to  the  City  Council  and  had  always  gotten  every¬ 
thing  it  asked  for,  that  it  could  do  about  anything  on 
the  face  of  the  earth  it  pleased,  and  that  the  people  of 
this  community  would  submit.  But  “there  is  a  tide  in 
the  affairs  of  men  which,  taken  at  its  flood,  leads  on  to 
fortune.”  That  tide  has  come  to  the  people  of  Chicago. 
Many  times  in  the  history  of  men  has  it  been  that  a  na¬ 
tion  or  a  class  has  become  so  unreasonable,  unjust  and 


8 


arrogant  as  to  precipitate  a  conflict  that  ended  their  ca¬ 
reers  forever.  In  the  history  of  this  country  when  the 
slaveholders  undertook  to  perpetuate  their  favorite  insti¬ 
tution  by  force,  and  made  war  upon  the  Union  of  these 
states,  they  sounded  the  death  knell  of  slavery.  The 
Civil  War  thus  begun  abolished  the  favorite  institution 
of  the  slaveholder  forever. 

My  friends,  a  situation  is  upon  us  that  is  serious  and 
important.  Number  260  is  going  to  win  its  fight;  there 
need  be  no  fear  about  that.  When  I  read  the  other 
morning  what  Number  241  had  done — that  four  thou¬ 
sand  brave  street  car  boys  had  voted  five  thousand  dol¬ 
lars  a  week  for  the  benefit  of  the  bovs  of  260,  and  when 

m>  ' 

I  learned  what  the  laboring  men  of  Chicago  and  over 
the  country  were  doing,  I  knew  that  the  strike  on  the 
part  of  260  was  as  sure  to  win  as  the  sun  was  to  go 
down  today.  But,  my  countrymen,  this  is  not  enough. 
At  no  time  in  its  recent  history  has  the  Chicago  City 
Railway  Company  been  so  weak  as  it  is  today.  What  do 
you  suppose  will  happen  to  Number  260,  or  to  any  other 
Union  of  street  car  men  that  may  be  working  for  it,  if 
that  Company  gets  this  twenty-year  franchise?  There 
is  a  remedy  for  all  this :  If  you  expect  street  cars  to  be 
run  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  people,  rather  than  for  the 
benefit  of  a  few  rich  men,  they  must  be  run  by  the 
people,  for  the  people.  If  you  expect  the  men  who  do 
the  work  and  run  the  cars  to  be  treated  like  men,  to  re¬ 
ceive  wages  that  men  ought  to  receive,  to  receive  the  treat¬ 
ment  and  consideration  that  noble  and  true  boys  ought  to 
receive,  you  must  place  their  case  in  the  hands  of  the  hon¬ 
est  people  of  this  city  (cries  of  “Aye,  aye”).  You  can 
never  trust  a  private  corporation,  for  it  will  grind  money 
out  of  men,  women  and  children  as  it  would  grind  it  out 
of  a  piece  of  wood,  iron  or  steel.  They  care  for  nothing 
but  money  (cries  of  “No”) ;  they  run  the  street  cars  foi' 


9 


money ;  they  buy  labor  to  make  money  out  of  it,  and  they 
want  to  buy  it  as  cheap  as  possible.  They  don’t  care  how 
many  hours  they  make  men  work,  or  the  hardships  they 
endure.  They  don’t  care  how  many  lives  they  take,  if 
only  they  can  make  more  money  for  idle  millionaires, 
(loud  and  continued  applause.)  There  is  only  one  rem¬ 
edy  for  this — and  that  is  municipal  ownership.  (Contin¬ 
ued  applause.) 

In  this  Supreme  Court  case  reported  in  191  Ill.,  every 
single  one  of  those  corporations  that  had  refused  to  pay 
its  taxes  and  had  annually  “induced”  the  State  Board  of 
Equalization  to  violate  the  law  and  their  oaths  of  office, 
and  enable  them  to  dodge  their  taxes,  was  a  public  serv¬ 
ice  corporation.  In  the  list  are  included  all  the  big  street 
railway  companies  in  Chicago,  the  big  Gas  Company  of 
Chicago,  the  Chicago  Telephone  Company,  and  every  one 
of  them  was  an  institution  that  ought  to  be  owned  and 
controlled  by  the  people  themselves.  (Applause.)  Who 
is  it  that  buys  City  Councils?  Who  is  it  that  buys  State 
Legislatures?  Who  is  it  that  buys  the  National  Con¬ 
gress?  Who  is  it  that  bribes  juries,  and  corrupts  the 
servants  of  the  people?  It  is  these  public  service  corpora¬ 
tions  that  are  doing  work  that  ought  to  be  done  by  the 
people  themselves  in  their  own  interest. 

This  strike,  this  conflict  between  the  Chicago  City 
Railway  Company  and  its  employes,  is  an  object  lesson 
to  the  people  of  this  city.  It  has,  I  hope,  fully  opened 
the  eyes  of  the  working  men  and  women  of  Chicago. 
You  have  now  an  opportunity  such  as  you  will  perhaps 
never  have  again  in  your  lives.  You  have  an  oppor¬ 
tunity  such  as  may  never  again  come  to  the  people  of 
Chicago.  You  have  heard  of  Philadelphia — that  city 
where  independence  was  born ;  the  place  where  the  Dec¬ 
laration  of  Independence  was  written  and  proclaimed  to 
the  world — yet  that  old  city,  that  once  noble  city,  that 


10 


once  grand  city  of  Philadelphia,  is  today  absolutely  in  the 
hands  of  its  public  service  corporations,  helpless  as  a 
babe. 

When  Virginia  ceded  the  Northwest  Territory  to  the 
United  States,  that  territory,  of  which  Illinois  is  a  part, 
chiefly  through  the  influence  of  the  author  of  the  Dec¬ 
laration  of  Independence,  was  made  forever  free  from 
the  blight  of  slavery.  My  countrymen,  when  you  and 
your  children  and  your  grandchildren  shall  come  to  read 
the  history  of  their  country  they  will  find  no  more  inter¬ 
esting  part  than  the  history  of  Illinois.  They  will  read 
that  Illinois  gave  to  America  and  the  world  the  great  lib¬ 
erator,  Abraham  Lincoln.  (Applause.)  They  will  read 
that  in  i860,  in  the  city  of  Chicago,  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  nominated  to  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States. 
They  will  read  that  in  all  the  history  of  men  there  has 
been  nothing  like  Chicago :  We  celebrated  last  month 
the  Centennial  of  the  building  of  Fort  Dearborn.  In 
one  hundred  years  Chicago  rose  to  a  city  of  two  millions 
of  souls.  In  this  city  more  extraordinary  events  have 
taken  place  within  the  same  length  of  time  than  in  any 
city  in  the  world.  In  1871  the  greater  part  of  it  was 
burned  to  the  ground,  yet  she  was  builded  up  again  as 
no  city  ever  was  before,  and  that,  too,  by  the  laboring 
men  of  Chicago.  (Great  applause.)  In  1892  and  1893 
was  celebrated  in  this  city  the  discovery  of  America,  by 
the  World’s  Fair,  and  a  most  wonderful,  a  most  marvel- 
ousc  exposition  it  was.  Most  extraordinary  things  have 
been  accomplished  by  Chicago.  Chicago  never  yet  un¬ 
dertook  in  dead  earnest  to  do  anything  that  it  did  not  do. 
( Applause.) 

But  now  we  have  reached  the  most  critical  period  in 
its  history — and  what  shall  be  that  history?  Shall  Chi¬ 
cago  find  herself  bound  hand  and  foot  like  Philadelphia 
(cries  “No,  no”),  or  shall  Chicago  break  her  fetters 


II 


and  demand  that  the  people  of  Chicago  shall  be  free, 
and  free  forever?  Shall  they  not  say  to  these  corrupt 
and  corrupting  public  corporations,  “You  have  already 
feasted  and  fattened  too  long  upon  the  people  of  Chi¬ 
cago  ,  we  propose  now  to  look  after  and  attend  to  our 
own  business,  and  see  to  it  that  the  example  of  the  great 
liberator  of  men — Abraham  Lincoln — shall  be  followed.” 
(Loud  and  continued  applause.) 

But,  ah,  they  say  “Chicago  cannot  own  and  operate 
her  street  railways.”  If  the  people  of  Chicago  cannot 
do  better  than  the  Chicago  City  Railway  has  done,  and 
better  than  the  other  street  railways  of  Chicago  have 
done,  I  would  disown  being  one  of  her  citizens.  (Great 
applause.)  I  know  that  she  can  attend  to  her  own  busi¬ 
ness,  and  I  believe  that  she  will  attend  to  her  own  busi¬ 
ness.  (Applause.) 

Somebody  exclaimed,  here  in  the  audience  the  other 
night,  that  if  these  aldermen  undertook  to  pass  this 
franchise,  “String  them  up!  Hang  them!”  I  wouldn't 
do  that.  You  are  law-abiding  people;  you  wouldn't  do 
that ;  you  don't  have  to  do  that ;  Chicago  doesn’t  do  good 
work  in  that  way.  What  we  want  to  do  is  to  make  the 
members  of  that  City  Council  and  the  Mayor  remember 
that  the  people  of  Chicago  are  in  the  saddle.  (Great  ap¬ 
plause.  )  They  want  to  understand  that  the  government 
of  this  city  is  the  people's  government ;  that  the  govern¬ 
ment  of  the  state  is  the  people’s ;  that  the  government  of 
the  nation  is  ours — the  people's — and  that  they  belong  to 
nobody  else. 

Suppose  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company  should 
send  an  agent  out  to  do  business  for  it,  and  suppose  the 
man  it  proposed  to  do  business  with  should  buy  up  its 
agent,  what  on  earth  would  the  Chicago  City  Railway  do 
with  that  agent?  (Cries  of  “Fire  him.”)  Why,  of 


12 


course,  it  would  “fire”  him,  and  send  him  to  the  peniten¬ 
tiary,  too.  Wouldn’t  it?  (Cries  “Yes,  yes.”) 

My  friends,  we  want  to  know  by  what  authority  these 
men  in  the  City  Council  propose  to  grant  this  franchise 
to  this  Street  Railway  Company.  They  know  that  in  do¬ 
ing  so  they  would  violate  their  obligations  to  the  people 
of  Chicago,  because  those  men  are  not  ignorant ;  the  peo¬ 
ple  have  instructed  them  on  the  question  of  municipal 
ownership.  In  every  ward  in  this  city  the  people  voted 
overwhelmingly,  five  to  one,  only  a  year  ago  last  spring, 
for  municipal  ownership.  (Applause.)  Every  one  of 
the  members  of  that  Council  have  been  instructed  by 
their  constituents  to  vote  for  municipal  ownership,  and 
yet  that  Council  has  been  working  for  months  to  give  a 
franchise  to  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company,  and  has 
not  spent  one  hour  toward  trying  to  get  municipal  owner¬ 
ship,  not  an  hour  in  obeying  the  instructions  of  the  people 
of  this  city.  What  is  the  matter,  do  you  suppose?  (Cries 
“No  money  in  it.”)  What  is  the  matter  with  them? 
(Cries  “No  money  in  it.”)  Ah,  my  friends,  we  want 
to  let  them  know  that  the  working  men  and  women  of 
Chicago  made  Chicago.  The  working  men  of  Chicago 
can  compel  that  Council  to  obey  the  voice  of  the  people 
of  Chicago  (cries  “We  will  do  it”) — and  if  they  do  not 
do  it  we  will  do  like  they  do  down  in  St.  Louis.  We  will 
begin  to  “investigate”  after  awhile,  and  some  of  these 
fellows  will  tell  on  some  of  the  other  fellows;  there  are 
always  “squeelers”  among  rogues — you  never  knew  it 
to  fail — and  when  they  begin  to  “squeel”  it  will  be  a 
a  contest  as  to  which  one  will  get  to  “squeel”  first.  The 
first  thing  you  know  they  will  all  want  to  “squeel,”  and 
then  you  will  see  some  of  them  getting  out  of  the  United 
States  of  America  just  as  quick  as  they  can,  in  order  to 
keep  out  of  the  penitentiary  of  the  State  of  Illinois. 
(Loud  applause.)  That  is  what  will  happen,  gentlemen. 


13 


This  whole  matter  is  in  your  hands — it  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  people  of  the  City  of  Chicago. 

What  do  yon  suppose  will  happen  if  you  let  this  ordi¬ 
nance  pass,  and  give  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company 
another  franchise,  and  then  give  the  Union  Traction 
Company  another  franchise?  (Cries  “We  won’t  do  it.”) 
Will  you  do  that?  (Cries  “No,  no.”)  What  will  hap¬ 
pen  to  the  street  car  men  then?  (Cries  “Slavery.”)  If 
they  will  be  so  arrogant,  so  inhuman,  so  insolent  as  they 
have  been  thus  far,  what  will  they  be  then?  Ah,  my 
countrymen,  the  time,  the  opportunity  is  now.  You 
must  sign  these  Referendum  petitions.  See  to  it  that  all 
your  voters  in  every  Local  sign  that  petition.  Then  see 
that  that  petition  is  sent  up  to  the  City  Council.  Then 
go  to  the  City  Council  yourselves  and  see  that  the  voice 
of  that  petition  is  heard,  and  see  that  it  is  obeyed.  I 
want  to  tell  you  that  no  man  is  brave  enough  to  stand 
against  the  voice  of  the  united  working  men  of  the  City 
of  Chicago.  (Loud  applause.)  I  care  not  what  influ¬ 
ence  street  railway  companies  may  have.  Those  men 
know  that  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice  of  God, 
and  they  will  be  getting  down  on  their  knees  and  hum¬ 
bly  obeying  it  if  you  make  it  loud  enough  and  unanimous 
enough. 

This  is  a  fight  for  humanity.  It  is  the  fight  of  the 
common  people  against  a  few  big  corporations.  Through 
your  laws  they  were  made.  They  could  not  exist  for  a 
day  but  for  you.  They  were  created  under  laws  made  by 
representatives  of  the  people.  The  people’s  servants  are 
bound  to  obey  the  people  if  the  people  but  speak  loud 
enough  and  strong  enough. 

I  am  glad  to  see  so  many  of  you  here  this  afternoon. 
I  know  that  the  working  men  of  this  city  are  awake  upon 
a  public  question  as  they  have  not  been  awake  before. 
I  am  glad  to  know  that  there  is  no  city  in  the  world 


14 


where  the  working  men  stand  together  as  unitedly  as 
they  do  in  the  City  of  Chicago.  (Applause.)  I  am 
glad  to  know  that  there  is  no  city  in  the  world  where  the 
working  men  are  more  intelligent,  honest,  faithful  and 
conscientious  than  in  Chicago.  (Applause.)  I  am  glad 
to  know  that  the  working  men  of  Chicago  have  made  up 
their  minds  that  the  streets  of  Chicago  and  the  City  of 
Chicago  and  the  officials  of  Chicago  belong  to  them, 
because  they  are  the  people.  (Loud  and  continued  ap¬ 
plause.)  If  you  will  stand  together  you  will  get  all  you 
want.  Let  no  man  complain  about  the  government — 
you  have  it  in  your  power  to  make  it  what  you  want  it 
to  be.  You  could  not  have  a  more  powerful  weapon 
than  the  ballot — and  when  the  right  time  comes  you 
want  to  see  to  it  that  those  servants  who  have  proved 
recreant  to  their  trusts  are  made  servants  no  longer,  and 
you  want  to  see  that  men  are  placed  in  public  position 
that  represent  you,  represent  your  voice  and  your  honest 
convictions.  When  that  time  comes  you  will  find  that 
you  have  at  last  a  government  “of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,”  in  splendid  reality.  (Applause.) 

Just  a  moment  more  and  I  shall  close.  One  of  the 
truest  friends  of  the  laboring  cause  was  Henry  D.  Lloyd. 
He  was  one  of  the  grandest  men  this  or  any  other  coun¬ 
try  ever  knew.  He  braved  obloquy  and  adverse  criti¬ 
cism,  to  write  and  speak  for  the  cause  of  laboring  men. 
The  last  days  of  his  life  were  spent  in  your  cause,  in 
Chicago’s  cause,  in  the  cause  of  the  public  ownership 
of  street  railways  in  Chicago.  He  gave  his  life  for  that 
cause,  and  next  Sunday  afternoon  a  memorial  service  to 
his  memory  will  be  held  at  the  Auditorium.  Attend  it, 
and  show  that  you  appreciate,  respect  and  honor  a  man 
who  was  ready  to  die  for  the  cause  of  the  common  peo¬ 
ple.  (Great  applause.) 


i5 


Mr.  Lloyd  also  wrote  a  little  pamphlet  on  the  street 
railway  question  here  in  Chicago;  it  sells  for  five  cents 
— not  enough  to  pay  for  the  printing.  See  that  you  have 
one  of  those  and  circulate  it  among  your  neighbors,  and 
in  a  short  time  there  will  not  be  an  intelligent  man  or 
woman  in  the  City  of  Chicago  who  is  not  in  favor  of 
municipal  ownership,  except  it  be  “widows  and  orphans” 
— such  as  Mr.  Field  and  Mr.  Leiter,  who  own  stock  in 
street  railways.  (Applause.) 

I  am  proud  of  the  laboring  people  of  Chicago;  I  am 
proud  of  Chciago;  and  it  is  now  in  your  hands  to  make 
Chicago  lead  the  world.  Let  Chicago  have  municipal 
ownership  of  street  railways ;  let  the  City  Council  grant 
no  more  franchises  to  any  private  corporation  to  render 
public  service,  and  you  will  find  that  the  other  cities  of 
America — in  the  course  of  time,  even  lazy,  corrupt  old 
Philadelphia — will  have  municipal  ownership,  too.  (Loud 
and  continued  applause.) 

As  I  said,  Chicago  has  given  to  the  world  some  grand 
men — she  gave  Lincoln,  and  she  gave  Lyman  Trumbull, 
the  man  whose  right  hand  wrote  the  Thirteenth  Amend¬ 
ment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  that  abol¬ 
ished  slavery — and  she  gave  others.  She  has  done  some 
grand  things,  too  (applause),  and  is  destined  yet  to 
do  some  grander  ones.  By  and  through  her  honest,  in¬ 
telligent  citizenship,  chiefest  among  them  being  her 
working  men  and  women,  Chicago  is  soon  to  escape  the 
thraldom  of  public  service  corporations  and  to  lead  the 
way  among  the  cities  of  America  in  their  march  to  the 
public  ownership  of  all  public  utilities.  (Great  ap¬ 
plause.) 


1 6 


ADDRESS  OF  WILLIAM  PRENTISS  BEFORE 
THE  TRANSPORTATION  COMMITTEE  OF 
THE  CITY  COUNCIL,  CHICAGO,  DECEMBER 
7TH,  1903. 

Mr.  Chairman,  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee,  Ladies  and 
Gentlemen : 

I  dislike  very  much  to  offer  an  apology  at  any  time, 
much  more  so  on  occasions  such  as  this;  but,  as  perhaps 
some  of  you  know,  some  of  us  have  been  engaged  very 
busily  for  a  number  of  weeks  past  in  a  matter  that  af¬ 
fected  the  entire  community,  more  or  less,  and  particu¬ 
larly  the  entire  south  side  of  the  city,  and  as  a  consider¬ 
able  part  of  that  labor  fell  upon  me  during  that  time,  I 
find  myself  sick.  I  am  only  here  today  because  I  felt 
as  though  we  ought  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  to 
accept  the  invitation  of  this  Committee  to  be  heard. 

I  am  here  to  represent  in  part  the  Federation  of  La¬ 
bor,  the  Municipal  Ownership  Delegate  Convention  and 
a  number  of  other  organizations  and  associations  of  citi¬ 
zens  who  have  deep  convictions  and  deep  feelings  upon 
these  present  questions.  These  are  not  public  servants. 
They  receive  no  salaries  or  pay  from  the  public.  They 
are  not  able  to  employ  counsel.  They  are  simply  citi¬ 
zens,  people  like  myself  and  yourselves  in  your  individual 
capacity,  not  in  your  official  capacity.  They  come 
here  at  their  own  expense,  taking  their  own  time,  not  be¬ 
cause  they  are  men  and  women  of  leisure,  for  they  are 
not;  they  are  wage  earners.  I  come  here  as  their  repre¬ 
sentative  as  well  as  in  my  own  personal  capacity,  not  for 
a  fee,  for  there  is  none. 

We  simply  come  here  to  present  to  our  representa- 


n 


tives  our  ideas  and  beliefs  upon  this  question.  We  fore¬ 
go  our  personal  comfort,  our  personal  duties,  and  let  go 
for  the  present  the  compensation  and  pay  which  we  would 
receive  if  engaged  in  our  regular  callings.  We  do  it  be¬ 
cause  we  believe  that  the  present  question  is  a  vital  ques¬ 
tion  and  that  the  present  time  is  a  vital  time.  We  be¬ 
lieve  that  a  crisis  is  upon  the  people  of  the  City  of  Chi¬ 
cago,  not  merely  for  those  who  are  living  here  today,  but 
for  those  who  are  to  follow  us,  for  our  children  and  our 
grandchild,  and  for  the  descendants  of  these  for  ages  to 
come.  We  believe  that  Chicago  now  has  such  an  oppor¬ 
tunity  as  she  will  not  be  likely  to  get  again  during  the 
present  generation  at  least.  What  may  happen  in  the 
next  generation  we  cannot  tell.  We  have  nothing  to  do 
with  that.  We  have  to  do  with  the  present,  and  all  we 
desire  is  to  perform  our  duties  as  citizens  thoroughly 
and  well. 

That  there  is  an  overwhelming  sentiment  in  this  com¬ 
munity  for  the  public  (or  municipal)  ownership  of  street 
railways  there  can  be  no  question.  Those  who  believed 
in  municipal  ownership  a  year  ago  last  Spring  went  to 
work — at  their  own  expense — and  obtained  a  petition  of 
over  100,000  legal  voters  in  this  city  asking  that  the 
question  might  be  submitted  to  the  people  of  this  com¬ 
munity  in  order  that  they  might  say  whether  or  not  they 
wanted  municipal  ownership  of  street  railroads  in  this 
city.  I  need  not  tell  you  what  that  vote  was.  You  all 
know  it.  You  know  that  every  precinct,  every  ward,  of 
this  city  voted  for  municipal  ownership;  not  a  single 
voting  precinct  in  the  entire  City  of  Chicago  voted 
against  it.  The  vote  in  favor  of  that  proposition  was 
nearly  as  large  as  was  the  vote  for  the  successful  candi¬ 
date  for  mayor  in  this  city  each  time  that  he  was  a  can¬ 
didate.  I  venture  to  say  that  never  in  the  history  of  this 


i8 


il 

country,  or  in  any  other  country,  has  such  an  overwhelm¬ 
ing  sentiment  been  expressed  by  the  people  upon  any 
public  question  as  that. 

Now,  why  were  the  people  of  Chicago  so  overwhelm¬ 
ingly  in  favor  of  public  ownership  of  street  railways  in 
this  city?  And  I  ask  that  question  of  any  gentleman  on 
this  Committee.  And  I  ask  that  question  of  any  of  the 
well  informed  citizens  of  the  City  of  Chicago.  Why  was 
there  such  a  sentiment  in  favor  of  public  ownership? 
There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  came  about  from  a  deep- 
seated  cause.  There  was  a  reason  for  it,  and  that  reason 
was  that  private  ownership  had  proved  a  failure;  that 
the  street  car  companies  in  the  City  of  Chicago  had  not 
furnished  satisfactory  service  to  the  people  of  this  city; 
that  the  experience  of  the  people  of  this  community  was 
such  that  they  felt  an  overwhelming  inclination  to  rid 
themselves  and  the  community  of  private  ownership  of 
street  car  lines  in  this  city;  to  rid  themselves  not  merely 
of  the  present  companies,  but  of  any  company,  because 
they  felt  that  service  would  not  be  rendered  properly  by 
any  other  power  except  by  the  people  themselves. 

It  was  like  a  case  where  a  man  had  been  hiring  some¬ 
body  to  perform  his  duties,  to  render  services  for  him, 
and  found  that  it  had  been  a  failure,  found  that  he  had 
not  been  served,  found  that  somebody  else  had  been 
served  and  found  that  if  he  would  get  proper  service  he 
must  render  it  himself.  Does  this  community,  or  any¬ 
body,  wish  better  or  stronger  evidence  than  this  of  the 
fact  that  the  street  car  service  in  this  city  has,  up  to 
the  present  time,  been  entirely  unsatisfactory  to  this  com¬ 
munity?  Can  there  be  any  other  reason  for  this  over¬ 
whelming  sentiment  on  the  part  of  the  people  to  banish 
the  present  representatives  of  the  people,  so  far  as  that 
service  is  concerned,  and  assume  and  perform  that  serv- 


19 


»  \  - 

i  .  *  ■ 

i  r  a 

ice  for  themselves?  Now  why  is  this?  Why  is  it  that 
the  people  of  the  city  feel  so  deeply  on  this  question? 
Let  us  go  back,  retrospect  a  little  and  see  what  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  the  City  of  Chicago  have  received  from  these  pri¬ 
vate  corporations  that  have  been  running  our  street  cars. 

In  1858  or  '59  the  first  street  car  company  in  Chicago 
was  formed.  Its  capital  was  $100,000.  It  had  25  horses 
and  4  cars.  Its  road  in  the  beginning  was  a  mile  long. 
It  was  called  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company.  From 
that  original  capital  of  $100,000  that  company  became 
the  richest  street  railroad  corporation  in  the  world.  And 
where  did  the  money  come  from?  It  came  out  of  the 
people  of  this  city. 

No  doubt  you  gentlemen  who  have  been  in  the  coun¬ 
cil  for  a  long  time  have  been  studying  this  question,  and 
no  doubt  you  have  read  the  report  of  the  civic  federation 
of  this  city  made  in  1901.  Those  gentlemen  were  not 
believers  in  municipal  ownership;  those  gentlemen  were 
not  radicals,  as  you  may  say,  upon  that  question.  They 
were  not  men  who  were  hostile  to  capital  or  hostile  to 
public  service  corporations,  but  they  were  conservative 
business  men  of  this  city.  And  what  do  they  tell  you  in 
that  report?  You  have  read  there,  or  can  read  there,  in 
large  part  the  history  of  the  street  railways  of  the  City 
of  Chicago  up  to  that  time.  We  also  find  from  other 
sources  that  scarcely  had  the  Chicago  City  Railway 
Company  received  its  first  charter  and  its  first  franchise 
when  it  began  to  prove  false  to  the  authority  that  created 
it  and  gave  it  all  its  power  and  privileges.  It  was  to  ren¬ 
der  service  for  a  five-cent  fare,  from  the  south  side  to  the 
west  side;  but  very  soon  afterwards  it  sold  its  west  side 
privileges  for  more  than  its  original  expenditure  for  the 
whole  concern,  and  after  that  persons  who  wanted  to  go 
from  the  south  side  to  the  west  side  had  to  pay  two  fares 
instead  of  one  as  originally.  And  then  what  did  it  do? 


20 


When  the  people  of  the  City  of  Chicago  were  resting  se¬ 
cure,  after  they  had  given  this  corporation,  up  to  that  time 
everything  it  had  asked,  it  went  straight  down  to  the 
legislature  of  the  state.  They  did  not  go  to  the  Common 
Council — the  company  had  then  used  six  years  only  of 
the  privileges  that  had  been  granted  it — but  it  went  to 
the  state  legislature  without  consulting  the  people  of  the 
City  of  Chicago,  and  it  undertook  to  perpetuate  its  pow¬ 
ers  and  its  privileges  for  nearly  a  hundred  years.  Did 
the  citizens  of  this  city  desire  that? 

Some  of  you  may  know,  or  at  least  have  read  the  his¬ 
tory  of  that  transaction,  and  if  you  have,  you  know  this : 
That  the  citizenship  of  Chicago  protested  against  it; 
that  when  they  learned  what  was  doing  they  held  public 
meetings.  The  “99-year”  act  had  already  passed  one 
branch  of  the  legislature.  Committees  then  went  down 
to  Springfield  to  prevent  its  passing  through  the  other 
branch,  but  they  were  unable  to  defeat  it.  It  passed. 
Then  they  went  to  the  governor  of  the  state,  Richard  J. 
Oglesby,  and  asked  him  to  veto  it,  and  prevent  that  out¬ 
rage  upon  the  people  of  Chicago,  and  he  did  veto  it.  He 
gave  reasons  that  would  appeal  to  any  man  of  judgment 
or  honor.  But  it  passed  through  the  legislature  of  the 
State  of  Illinois  by  a  two-third  majority,  against  the  pro¬ 
test,  against  the  honest  efforts  of  the  people  of  the  City 
of  Chicago. 

That  was  this  same  Chicago  City  Railway  Company 
that  did  that.  What  was  it  that  induced  the  legislature 
of  the  State  of  Illinois  to  betray  the  citizenship  of  Chi¬ 
cago?  Not  only  those  who  were  alive,  but  to  betray 
generations  unborn?  Need  I  tell  you,  gentlemen,  what 
it  was?  You  know  what  it  was.  The  whole  community 
at  the  time  knew  what  it  was.  You  know  that  the  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  the  people  in  the  legislature  did  not  do  that 


21 


without  a  consideration,  and  you  know  that  consideration 
was  foul  and  criminal. 

But  notwithstanding  that,  in  1883  this  City  Railway 
Company  got  another  franchise.  In  the  meantime,  other 
street  railway  corporations  had  been  born  and  had  grown 
up  in  this  city.  They  would  go  to  the  legislature  when  it 
suited  them,  and  go  to  the  council  when  it  suited  them. 
You  remember  the  legislature  that  was  elected  in  1894; 
you  remember  that  these  companies  went  to  that  legisla¬ 
ture,  these  same  street  car  companies  that  are  now  ask¬ 
ing  favors  of  the  City  of  Chicago;  and  you  know  that 
they  got  through  that  legislature,  both  branches  of  it,  a 
measure  that  paid  no  regard  to  the  people  of  this  city  or 
the  City  Council.  They  got  direct  through  the  legisla¬ 
ture  a  law  that  gave  them  privileges  that  were  worth  un¬ 
told  millions  of  dollars. 

And  you  know  that  this  was  prevented  from  becoming 
the  law  of  the  State  by  one  man,  and  that  man  was  Gov¬ 
ernor  John  P.  Altgeld.  (Great  applause.) 

You  know  that  they  went  back  to  the  next  legislature, 
the  one  that  was  elected  in  1896.  The  people  at  that 
time  paid  little  attention  to  the  personnel  of  the  legislators 
upon  the  traction  question.  There  were  other  important 
questions  to  be  considered.  Not  a  man,  perhaps,  was 
elected  to  the  legislature  upon  the  issue  of  the  street  car 
question.  But  the  same  influences  went  down  there  to 
Springfield  as  before,  and  the  so-called  “Humphrey  bilP’ 
was  proposed,  which  extended  practically  all  of  these 
franchises  in  this  city  for  fifty  years.  No  citizen  of  Chi¬ 
cago  was  consulted ;  neither  the  Mayor  nor  the  City 
Council  was  consulted.  But  the  people  in  this  commu¬ 
nity,  practically  all  classes,  arose  and  said  “No,  that  is 
an  outrage,  and  we  will  not  permit  it."  The  City  Council, 
the  Mayor,  the  best  citizenship  of  this  city,  without  re- 


gard  to  occupation  or  party  affiliation,  went  down  to 
Springfield,  or  sent  delegations  down  to  Springfield,  and 
they  prevented  the  passage  of  the  “Humphrey  bill.” 

But  no  sooner  was  that  out  of  the  way  than  the  same 
powers  were  there  with  another  bill  known  as  the  Allen 
law.  The  people  protested  against  it.  Telegrams  were 
sent  against  it.  The  people  did  all  they  could  in  the  few 
days  they  had  after  they  learned  what  was  going  on  be¬ 
fore  the  bill  was  put  through  the  legislature.  And  you 
gentlemen  know,  and  every  citizen  of  Chicago  knows, 
how  it  was  put  through.  You  know  that  representatives 
of  the  people  were  corrupted,  and  you  know  that  it  has 
been  a  stigma  upon  every  member  of  the  legislature  from 
that  hour  to  this  that  cast  his  vote  for  the  so-called 
Allen  bill.  Why  was  this  done?  It  was  done  to  prevent 
the  people  of  the  City  of  Chicago  from  passing  upon 
these  questions.  They  sought  first  to  ignore  the  people 
of  Chicago,  to  ignore  the  Mayor  and  Council  of  the  City 
of  Chicago,  and  it  was  the  efforts  of  the  citizenship  of 
this  city,  backed  by  most  of  the  press  of  this  city,  that 
finally  brought  about  the  repeal  of  the  Allen  law  before 
any  great  amount  of  mischief  was  done  under  it.  The 
council  refused  to  act  under  it  at  all. 

These  are  the  companies  that  now  are  coming  to  this 
council  and  asking  for  further  privileges  and  favors. 
You  know  that  we  have  been  having  for  years  ex¬ 
tremely  poor  street  car  service.  You  must  know,  I  am 
very  sure  the  people  whom  I  represent  here  to-day  know, 
that  there  has  been  scarcely  a  measure  passed  by  this 
City  Council  for  the  protection  of  the  citizenship  of  this 
city,  to  compel  these  corporations  to  perform  their  du¬ 
ties  to  the  public,  that  has  not  been  ignored  by  the  com¬ 
panies  as  long  as  they  could  ignore  it,  and  when  they  were 
forced  by  the  process  of  the  law  to  obey,  they  still  re- 


23 


fused  compliance  and  compelled  the  people  of  this  com¬ 
munity,  through  their  officials,  to  go  to  the  highest 
courts  in  the  state  to  have  their  laws  and  their  ordinances 
obeyed. 

Let  me  remind  you  of  a  little  matter  that  occurred  re¬ 
cently.  A  number  of  years  ago  the  City  Council  passed 
an  ordinance  providing  and  requiring  these  street  car 
companies  to  give  certain  transfers.  You  remember  that 
passengers  were  charged  two  fares  to  go  from  the  central 
part  of  the  city  on  the  north  side  to  Rogers  Park, 
where  I  live,  and  such  was  the  case  in  other  parts  of  the 
city.  The  ordinance  was  passed  regulating  this,  but  there 
was  no  effort  to  enforce  it  until  after  a  considerable 
length  of  time.  Finally  the  people  out  in  Austin,  to 
whom  it  applied  as  well  as  the  north  part  of  the  city,  took 
up  the  matter  and  they  began  to  prosecute  the  Chicago 
Union  Traction  Company  for  violating  that  ordinance 
and  not  giving  these  transfers  that  ordinance  required. 
And  you  remember  what  happened  when  the  Company 
was  sued  by  the  City  for  a  violation  of  that  ordinance. 
You  know  what  was  done  with  juries.  You  know  that 
attorneys  for  the  Company,  a  number  of  them,  were  ar¬ 
rested  for  bribing  the  juries,  some  of  them  even  pleaded 
guilty  to  that  charge,  and  other  were  convicted ;  that  the 
juries  were  bribed  there  is  no  question  in  the  minds  of 
the  people  of  this  community.  I  remember  that  after 
Judge  Ball  had  rendered  his  decision  holding  that  the 
ordinance  was  valid  and  binding  and  that  the  Council  had 
a  right  to  pass  it,  they  still  refused  to  obey  it  or  allow  it 
to  be  enforced.  That  was  true  on  the  south  side  as  well 
as  on  the  north  side. 

While  the  matter  was  pending  in  the  Supreme  Court, 
from  time  to  time,.  I  saw  personally  the  conduct  of  the 
North  Side  Company.  Night  after  night  when  I  went 


24 


to  my  home,  after  I  passed  Graceland  avenue  I  was 
asked  for  another  fare,  but  being  a  pretty  good  sized  man 
and  not  accustomed  to  being  robbed  or  bulldozed,  I  re¬ 
fused.  They  didn’t  attempt  to  put  me  off  the  car;  but  I 
saw  women  and  little  girls  and  weak  or  uninformed  men 
compelled  to  pay  a  second  fare.  That  was  done  over  and 
over  again,  day  after  day.  Thousands  of  dollars  were 
taken  in  that  way  out  of  the  people  of  that  part  of  the 
city  alone.  The  street  car  boys  didn’t  want  to  do  it.  I 
know  how  thev  felt  about  it  because  I  talked  with  some 
of  them  about  it.  They  said : 

“We  wouldn’t  do  this  if  we  could  help  it,  but  our  posi¬ 
tions  depend  upon  our  doing  it.”  I  said  to  them  a  number 
of  times : 

“Don’t  you  know  that  this  is  contrary  to  an  ordinance 
of  the  City  of  Chicago  that  has  been  upheld  by  Judge 
Ball  and,  in  my  judgment,  will  be  upheld  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State?” 

They  said,  “It  makes  no  difference;  we  are  ordered  to 
collect  these  fares  or  threaten  to  put  them  off ;  we  must 
not  put  anybody  off  by  force — that  might  involve  the 
company  in  trouble  or  expense,  but  if  we  can  get  the  peo¬ 
ple  to  pay  it  by  threats  and  intimidation,  we  are  in¬ 
structed  to  take  the  money.”  And  they  did  it. 

The  same  thing  was  done  on  the  south  side  (I  am  in¬ 
formed)  by  the  Chicago  City  Railway,  and,  I  repeat, 
thousands  of  dollars  were  taken  out  of  poor  girls  and 
boys  and  men  and  women  and  put  into  the  pockets  of 
these  street  railway  companies  of  this  city  in  violation  of 
the  law.  Had  these  nickels  been  taken  in  this  way  by  a 
highwayman  upon  the  street,  the  law  would  have  come 
in  and  the  public  officials  would  have  said,  “That  is  high¬ 
way  robbery;  we  will  send  the  scoundrels  to  the  peniten¬ 
tiary.” 


25 


f 

That  transfer  case  went  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
state;  it  was  decided  in  favor  of  the  ordinance.  Judge 
Ball  was  upheld.  But  have  you  ever  heard  of  the  City 
Railway  or  the  Union  T raction  Company,  or  the  Consol¬ 
idated  Traction  Company,  returning  the  thousands  of 
dollars  to  the  people  of  this  city  that  they  took  out  of 
them  by  this  intimidation  and  outrage?  Do  you  won¬ 
der  that  the  people  of  the  City  of  Chicago  became  tired, 
became  incensed,  became  indignant,  and  said : 

“We  owe  these  street  car  companies  nothing;  they 
have  betrayed  us  from  the  time  of  their  inception  to  this 
hour;  the  are  corporations  created  to  get  money  for  div¬ 
idends  to  stockholders. 

“That  is  what  they  are  for.  That  is  their  purpose  and 
their  aim  and  they  respect  nothing  else  and  regard  noth¬ 
ing  else  ;  we  cannot  trust  these  street  car  companies  nor 
trust  any  other;  we  want  to  do  our  business  for  our¬ 
selves/’  (Applause.) 

Some  of  you  gentlemen  are  business  men.  You  have 
had  occasion  and  doubtless  will  have  occasion  in  the 
future  to  employ  people  to  do  work  for  you,  to  represent 
you.  What  would  you  think  if  your  agent,  or  your  repre¬ 
sentative,  would  conduct  your  business  and  would  serve 
you  as  these  street  car  companies  have  served  the  people 
of  the  City  of  Chicago  ?  There  is  not  a  man  among  you 
that  would  stand  it  for  an  hour,  if  you  knew  it.  You 
would  kick  him  out  of  your  employ,  and  if  you  could  get 
the  evidence  you  would  send  him  to  the  penitentiary 
where  he  belonged.  But  suppose  he  should  say,  “Please 
hire  me  over  again  ;  give  me  a  new  chance ;  perhaps  I 
will  do  better  in  the  future.”  Would  you  do  it?  If  you 
did  do  it,  you  would  expect  to  be  sent  very  shortly  either 
to  the  insane  asylum  of  the  state  or  to  a  school  for  the 
committee,  or  at  least  a  sub-feeble  minded.  And  yet  this 
committee  of  it,  seems  to  be  seriously  considering  the 


26 


question  of  giving  to  the  Chicago  City  Railway  a  fran¬ 
chise  for  twenty  years  more. 

Now  these  are  some  reasons  why  the  people  of  this 
city  are  asking  for  municipal  ownership.  Don’t  you  think 
they  ought  to  try  to  get  it? 

Did  you  ever  in  your  lives  hear  of  a  wrong  without  a 
remedy?  If  you  will  read  the  history  of  this  country, 
or  if  you  will  read  the  history  of  any  other  country, 
when  the  people — or  some  of  them — were  seeking  to 
better  the  condition  of  the  community,  and  seeking  to 
right  some  wrong  that  the  people  had  been  suffering, 
some  people  would  always  say:  “We  can’t  do  it;  we 
have  to  submit.”  All  along  the  ages  the  same  kind  of 
argument  has  been  brought  forth  by  some  of  the  peo¬ 
ple.  But  there  always  have  been  a  few,  very  nearly  al¬ 
ways,  at  first  called  “impractical,”  sometimes  they  were 
called  “agitators,”  and  sometimes  called  “wild-eyed,”  and 
other  names  of  that  kind.  But  these  have  said,  “Where 
there  is  a  wrong  there  should  be  a  remedy,  and  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  good  citizen  to  seek  out  and  find  that  rem¬ 
edy.” 

Why,  I  remember — and  I  am  not  an  old  man,  at  least 
I  don’t  feel  old — when  I  was  a  little  boy,  along  about 
1859  I  was  living  in  a  little  town  in  this  state  where  my 
father  died  in  1854,  and  my  mother  said  to  me  one  Sun¬ 
day,  “I  want  you  to  go  with  me  to  the  Presbyterian 
Church  today  to  hear  the  sermon  of  a  minister.”  She 
was  a  Methodist,  and  as  a  rule  went  to  that  church.  The 
reason  she  wanted  to  go  to  the  Presbyterian  was  that  the 
minister  was  going  to  preach  a  sermon  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  and  she  wanted  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say. 
There  were  a  good  many  abolitionists  in  that  little  town 
who  believed  slavery  was  wrong,  believing  it  was  a 
crime,  a  terrible  sin,  and  the  church  was  crowded  with 
people. 


27 


I  remember  that  minister  well,  and  he  was  not  a  bad 
man,  either;  he  was  really  a  good  man  at  heart,  an  hon- 
nest,  upright  man.  He  opened  the  lids  of  the  Bible  and 
he  read  several  texts  and  he  preached  his  sermon.  I 
cannot  remember  the  details  of  it ;  my  mind  was  too 
young  to  grasp  all  that  he  said ;  but  I  remember  this : 
That  he  absolutely  proved  by  scripture  that  slavery  was 
right;  he  absolutely  proved  that  because  it  was  right 
it  would  exist  forever  and,  he  said,  “there  was  no  use 
preaching  against  it,  no  use  fighting  against  it,  because 
it  could  not  be  helped :  it  was  one  of  the  things  that  we 
had  to  endure  and  had  to  bear.”  And  I  saw  a  gray-haired 
and  gray-whiskered  old  man  get  up  in  that  audience;  he 
was  not  a  preacher,  he  was  simply  a  citizen,  a  member  of 
the  church.  He  said,  in  substance: 

“I  want  to  protest  against  what  you  have  uttered ; 
God  never  made  any  such  statement  as  you  say.  Slav¬ 
ery  is  a  curse  and  an  evil,  and  God  Almighty  in  His  own 
good  time  will  wipe  it  out.” 

But  the  preacher  silenced  him  and  let  him  say  no  more. 
That  was  in  1859.  The  next  year  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
elected  President  of  the  United  States  and  long  before 
his  first  term  had  expired  he  wrote  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation.  And  a  little  time  later  Lyman  Trumbull, 
one  of  our  citizens  of  Chicago,  with  his  own  right  hand 
wrote  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  that  abolished  slavery  forever.  (Ap¬ 
plause.) 

Ah,  gentlemen !  I  undertake  to  say  that  where  there  is 
a  wrong  there  is  a  remedy. 

Now  will  anybody  question  what  I  have  said  in  re¬ 
gard  to  the  conduct  of  these  street  car  companies?  Will 
anybody  question  but  what  they  ought  to  be  gotten  rid 
of  if  we  can  possibly  do  E?  Will  anybody  uphold  them 


28 


in  their  nefarious  work?  I  would  like  to  see  the  man 
who  could  stand  up  before  an  audience  in  Chicago  and 
say  of  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company  or  of  the 
Chicago  Union  Traction  Company,  “Well  done,  thou 
good  and  faithful  servant.”  (Great  laughter  and  ap¬ 
plause.  ) 

You  know  they  have  betrayed  every  trust,  and  you 
know  that  we  have  been  during  these  years  practically  in 
the  hands  of  freebooters.  If  this  work  had  been  done 
by  individuals  instead  of  by  corporations  all  would  con¬ 
cede  their  place  to  be  in  the  penitentiary  of  the  state. 
They  have  committed  crimes  enough  to  keep  them  there 
a  natural  human  lifetime. 

And  yet  it  is  said,  “We  cannot  help  it — we  have  got  to 
have  them.”  Now,  there  are  some  of  us  who  do  not  be¬ 
lieve  that.  You  heard  Mr.  Bonney  this  morning,  and  he 
talked  in  detail  of  temporary  relief  by  simply  licensing 
the  roads  and  of  compelling  good  service.  Any  lawyer 
knows — and  I  observe  a  number  of  lawyers  on  this  com¬ 
mittee — that  under  the  police  powers  of  Chicago  they 
can  be  compelled  to  render  good  service;  that  they  can 
be  licensed  and  that  they  can  be  compelled  to  perform 
their  duty  as  licensees  and  the  service  of  this  city  greatly 
improved  if  the  City  of  Chicago  sees  fit  to  exercise  the 
power  it  possesses. 

Now,  in  deference  to  this  sentiment  of  the  people  ex¬ 
pressed  a  y ear  ago  last  April  there  was  a  cry  for  a  Muni¬ 
cipal  Ownership  Enabling  Act.  It  was  said  by  this  city, 
and  the  Mayor  and  the  Council  of  this  city,  “We  must 
have  an  Enabling  Act.”  The  Mayor  said  over  and  over 
again  that  he  would  not  consider  any  franchise,  as  far  as 
he  was  concerned,  until  they  did  have  such  an  Enabling 
Act.  I  believe  a  bill  was  prepared  and  proposed  in  the 
Council  by  Alderman  Finn.  Another  was  prepared  by 


29 


Alderman  Jackson;  such  an  act  as  the  Council,  or  at 
least  those  gentlemen,  believed  would  be  sufficient  to 
bring  about  municipal  ownership  in  the  City  of  Chi¬ 
cago;  that,  at  least,  would  enable  the  people  of  Chi¬ 
cago  to  get  municipal  ownership  if  they  should  desire  it. 

But  finally  a  measure  was  introduced  in  the  legislature 
by  Mr.  Carl  Mueller,  a  state  senator  on  the  north  side. 
I  was  for  a  time  a  constituent  of  Senator  Mueller.  I 
never  heard  that  he  was  particularly  a  friend  of  munici¬ 
pal  ownership.  But  the  bill  that  he  offered  in  the  senate 
was  endorsed  by  a  good  many  people  in  this  community. 
It  is  said  to  have  been  written  by  a  gentleman  connected 
with  the  Municipal  Voters’  League.  How  that  is,  I  do 
not  know.  But  I  know  this,  and  it  has  been  already  told 
you  today,  that  the  Mayor  of  the  city  endorsed  that 
measure.  I  believe  I  am  correct  in  stating  that  the  City 
Council  endorsed  it.  I  know  I  am  correct  in  stating 
that  a  number  of  gentlemen  on  this  committee  endorsed 
it  and  that  other  people  and  distinguished  members  of 
the  City  Council  endorsed  it  as  a  Municipal  Ownership 
Enabling  Act. 

Now  I  know  some  people  make  mistakes.  We  are  all 
liable  to.  It  may  be  that  you  gentlemen,  or  those  of  you 
who  endorsed  that  as  a  Municipal  Ownership  Enabling 
Act,  were  mistaken.  It  may  be  that  measure  is  not 
in  every  respect  what  it  might  have  been.  But  it 
did  receive  the  endorsement  of  the  legislative  and 
executive  departments  of  this  city,  and  through  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  the  City  Council  and  the  Mayor,  and  such  men 
as  Mr.  Graeme  Stewart  and  other  citizens,  the  legisla¬ 
ture  of  the  state  was  induced  to  pass  it.  So  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  it  seems  clear  to  me  that  if  the  proper  effort 
is  put  forth,  municipal  ownership  can  be  gotten  out  of 
that  Mueller  law.  I  do  think  that  it  could  have  been  im¬ 
proved  ;  I  think  it  could  have  been  made  better,  but  per- 


30 


baps  I  am  mistaken.  Any  measure  that  the  legislature 
might  pass  would  have  been  contested  in  the  courts. 
There  is  no  doubt  about  that.  These  street  car  compa¬ 
nies  will  not  let  go  any  of  their  privileges  or  rights,  or 
asserted  rights,  without  a  contest.  Any  measure  that 
pointed  to  municipal  ownership,  or  was  thought  to  be  of 
such  a  character  as  could  bring  it  about,  would  have  been 
opposed  by  these  same  men  and  companies.  They  would 
fight  it  in  the  courts.  They  will  contest  it  to  the  very  last 
ditch ;  and  any  measure  that  could  have  been  prepared 
or  proposed  would  have  been  compelled  to  run  the 
gauntlet  of  their  opposition  and  their  hostility. 

But  certainly  this  Council  has  no  right  to  question 
that  measure.  The  Mayor  of  this  city  has  no  right  to 
question  that  measure.  They  said  that  it  was  a  Municipal 
Ownership  Enabling  Act  such  as  we  wanted,  and  it  is 
their  bounden  duty,  not  only  to  the  people  of  the  City  of 
Chicago  who  want  municipal  ownership  and  expressed  it 
in  the  most  positive  way,  but  it  is  their  duty  to  them¬ 
selves.  They  owe  it  to  their  own  reputations,  to  go  to 
work,  persistently,  energetically  and  intelligently,  to  get 
municipal  ownership  out  of  it. 

Did  you  ask  for  the  Mueller  bill  for  the  benefit  of  the 
next  generation?  Did  you  offer  this  measure  to  the 
Mayor  and  Council  that  is  to  be  twenty  years  hence? 
Was  it  that?  If  you  were  unable  to  devise  a  law  that  you 
yourselves  could  use  to  bring  about  municipal  ownership, 
what  sort  of  right  had  you  to  assume  to  produce  one  for 
the  next  generation?  (Applause.) 

Now,  what  has  been  done  toward  bringing  about  mun¬ 
icipal  ownership?  What  has  been  done  by  the  City 
Council,  or  this  honorable  committee,  looking  toward 
municipal  ownership,  toward  bringing  it  about?  To  be 
sure,  we  don’t  know  how  extensive  the  investigations  of 
this  committee,  or  of  the  sub-committee,  have  been.  The 


31 


people  of  this  community  don’t  know  what  has  passed  in 
the  negotiations  between  this  committee  and  representa¬ 
tives  of  the  Chicago  City  Railway.  They  assume,  of 
course,  that  everything  has  been  right  and  proper,  and  I 
am  not  here  to  question  that.  But  the  arguments  pro 
and  con,  the  discussions  between  the  members  upon  the 
question  of  municipal  ownership,  if  there  have  been  any, 
we  know  nothing  about.  They  have  not  been  printed  in 
the  papers  and  no  citizen  that  I  have  ever  heard  of,  who 
was  not  a  member  or  an  officer  of  the  committee,  or  an 
employe  of  the  committee,  or  a  representative  of  the 
Chicago  City  Railway  Company,  knows  anything  about 
what  they  were.  Don’t  understand  me  in  any  way  to 
reflect  upon  the  committee,  but  I  simply  call  your  atten¬ 
tion  to  this :  That  whatever  effort  has  been  made  in  the 
way  of  research,  in  the  way  of  investigation,  in  the  way 
of  study,  in  the  way  of  argument,  upon  that  question  is  a 
profound  secret  to  the  people  of  Chicago  today. 

Whether  these  gentlemen  believe  in  municipal  owner¬ 
ship  or  not,  I  do  not  know;  but  certainly  they  do  not  be¬ 
lieve  in  it  in  the  way  that  some  of  us  believe  in  it.  How 
do  you  expect  that  anybody  will  ever  get  anything  un¬ 
less  they  try  for  it?  That  is  one  of  the  first  lessons  my 
mother  taught  me.  When  I  told  her  that  my  lesson  was 
hard,  she  said,  “Try,  my  boy;  try;  study,”  and  she 
handed  to  me  a  little  poem  that  was  printed  in  a  little 
school  book.  It  said  : 

“Try,  try,  again; 

If  at  first  you  don't  succeed, 

Try,  try,  again.” 

She  told  me  that  really  there  was  no  such  word  as  fail 
in  any  laudable  undertaking  or  in  any  honorable  under¬ 
taking.  Suppose  I  had  said,  “Oh,  mother,  I  can’t;  I 
can’t  get  it  (I  was  a  rather  dull  pupil).  I  can't  get 
this  arithmetic  lesson,  I  can’t  get  his  reading  lesson,  I 


32 


can’t  get  this  grammar  lesson.”  What  do  yon  suppose 
would  have  become  of  me?  Now  if  that  is  a  good  les¬ 
son  for  a  pupil  is  it  not  a  good  one  for  a  people,  for  any 
one  in  a  community  who  desires  to  accomplish  anything? 
Don’t  you  think  it  is  worthy  of  imitation  on  the  part  of 
the  representatives  of  the  people  in  a  great  city  like  Chi¬ 
cago?  Now  you  gentlemen  may  have  tried,  but  if  you 
have,  the  citizens  of  Chicago  know  nothing  about  it.  So 
far  as  I  have  ever  been  able  to  learn,  it  has  been  assumed 
that  3^ou  could  not  do  it,  and  therefore  you  could  not. 
The  people  of  Chicago  voted  for  it  overwhelmingly — 
more  than  five  to  one.  You  recommended  a  law  to  the 
legislature  of  the  state  which  you  said  would  bring  about 
municipal  ownership,  and  though  that  legislature  passed 
it  a  long  time  ago,  there  hasn’t  anything  been  done  that 
T  have  heard  of  by  the  City  Council  of  this  city  to  indi¬ 
cate  that  any  effort  ever  has  been  made  to  bring  about, 
municipal  ownership  sooner  than  twenty  years  from 
now. 

Now  this  is  a  strange  situation.  Are  you  going  to 
say  to  the  people,  are  you  going  to  say  to  the  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  the  laboring  people  of  Chicago,  to  the  rep¬ 
resentatives  of  the  Municipal  Ownership  Delegate  Con¬ 
vention  of  Chicago,  and  these  other  societies,  are  you  go¬ 
ing  to  say  to  the  nearly  150,000  people  who  voted  for 
Municipal  Ownership,  “Come  and  tell  us  how  to  get  it; 
you  come  and  tell  us  how  to  get  it.”  Why  should  we 
tell  the  City  Council  how  to  get  municipal  ownership? 
(Applause.)  We  are  simply  people;  we  earn  our  bread 
by  the  sweat  of  our  faces;  we  are  not  salaried  and  paid 
by  this  municipality.  We  have  no  more  or  greater  duty 
to  perform  than  the  humblest  citizen  of  the  city.  As  I 
said  a  while  ago,  we  have  taken  our  time  and  put  forth 
our  efforts  to  do  what  we  can  to  help  bring  about  muni¬ 
cipal  ownership. 


33 


But,  gentlemen,  the  City  Council  of  the  City  of  Chi¬ 
cago  are  our  representatives.  The  Mayor  of  the  City  of 
Chicago  is  our  representative.  They  are  paid  annually 
considerably  more  than  $100,000  to  serve  the  people  of 
this  community.  They  are  supposed  to  be  learned  in 
municipal  affairs.  They  are  supposed  to  have  at  heart 
the  well  being  of  the  community.  They  are  paid  for 
their  time.  Not  only  that,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  city  gov¬ 
ernment,  the  Mayor  and  Council,  to  do  what  they  can  for 
the  community,  but  they  have  a  legal  department,  too, 
paid  by  this  community.  Not  only  have  they  a  regu¬ 
lar  legal  department,  but  they  have  employed  special 
counsel,  able  lawyers,  men  learned  in  the  law,  paid  big 
fees,  no  doubt,  as  they  should  be  (no  lawyer  is  going  to 
kick  on  another  lawyer’s  fees).  (Laughter.) 

But  if  these  attorneys  who  have  been  employed  spe¬ 
cially  have  ever  put  in  a  single  hour  in  trying  to  devise 
ways  and  means  to  bring  about  municipal  ownership  in 
the  City  of  Chicago,  I  have  never  heard  of  it.  (Ap¬ 
plause.)  Those  gentlemen  are  not  paid  by  the  Chicago 
City  Railway  Company  except  as  that  railway  company 
pays  taxes,  and  nobody  has  ever  accused  it  of  paying  any 
more  taxes  than  it  ought  to  have  paid,  and  the  Supreme 
Court  of  this  state  has  said,  in  effect,  that  they  have  paid 
much  less  than  one-tenth  of  what  they  ought  to  have 
paid  during  the  last  twenty  years.  It  is  the  people  who 
pay  these  officials  and  attorneys,  and  pay  them  to  serve 
them.  Now  those  gentlemen  by  simply  saying,  “We  can¬ 
not  have  it,”  and  this  honorable  committee  and  the  City 
Council  by  saying,  “Our  attorneys  tell  us  that  we  can¬ 
not  have  it,  therefore  we  cannot  have  it.  And  then  to 
come  to  us,  come  to  the  Federation  of  Labor,  to  the  wage 
earners  of  Chicago,  come  to  lawyers  like  myself,  who 
have  to  earn  every  dollar  they  get,  and  by  the  hardest 
knocks,  and  say,  “You  tell  us  how  to  get  municipal  own¬ 
ership.” 


34 


But  this  Council  sub-committee  has  produced  some¬ 
thing.  I  have  here  in  my  hand  something  which  we  are 
to  discuss.  It  is  an  ordinance  for  the  Chicago  City  Rail¬ 
way  Company — it  looks  very  much  like  it  was  for  the 
Chicago  City  Railway  Company.  (Applause.)  But  I 
am  afraid  it  is  not  for  the  people.  Now,  I  haven’t  the 
time  to  discuss  that  ordinance  in  detail.  I  haven’t  even 
had  the  time  to  read  it  with  care.  I  read  it,  however,  so 
that  I  know  substantially  what  it  contains.  And  it  seems 
that  these  special  attorneys  and  the  whole  legal  depart¬ 
ment  of  Chicago  who  have  been  called  to  assist  in  this 
matter,  together  with  this  honorable  committee,  have 
been  able  to  produce  just  one  thing. 

They  seem  to  have  been  studying  all  the  time — instead 
of  studying  Municipal  Ownership — studying  franchises. 
They  seem  to  have  been  thoroughly  informed  upon  the 
franchise  question,  and  they  have  produced  this.  They 
have  either  forgotten  or  they  have  ignored  the  entire  his¬ 
tory  of  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company,  or  else  they 
never  knew  it.  They  seem  to  have  forgotten  that  that 
Railway  Company,  almost  from  the  time  it  was  created, 
has  failed  to  perform  its  duties  to  the  citizenship  of  this 
City.  I  will  not  repeat  what  I  said  as  to  some  of  the 
things  it  did.  But  you  gentlemen  know,  no  doubt,  that 
it  never  has  performed  its  duty  to  the  people  of  this  com¬ 
munity  in  the  way  of  paying  taxes. 

You  know  that  this  company,  with  twenty  others  of 
the  public  service  corporations  of  this  city,  have  been 
evading  their  just  taxes  for  years,  that  they  have  had  a 
very  powerful  influence  upon  some  of  our  public  servants 
down  at  Springfield,  called  the  State  Board  of  Equaliza¬ 
tion,  and  that  that  board  very  kindly  and  generously  al¬ 
lowed  them  to  escape  paying  the  principal  part  of  their 
taxes. 

Now  I  am  not  going  to  criticise  harshly  any  of  the 


35 


✓ 


people  of  this  city,  but  it  does  seem  to  me  a  little  odd,  as 
it  does  to  the  people  whom  I  represent  here  today,  that 
the  richest  corporations  in  this  city  should  for  years 
have  been  able  to  escape  their  taxes,  and  that  not  until 
the  School  Teachers  of  this  City,  and  the  women  teach¬ 
ers  at  that,  who  had  no  votes,  had  to  take  up  that  ques¬ 
tion  and  did  take  it  up.  That  at  their  own  expense  they 
hired  lawyers  and  went  down  before  that  Board  of  Equal¬ 
ization,  and  there  met  face  to  face  the  representatives  of 
these  great  public  service  corporations,  and  finally  by  a 
writ  of  mandamus  from  the  Circuit  Court  compelled  that 
board  to  assess  these  corporations  upon  their  franchises 
and  their  capital  stock.  (Applause.) 

Why,  one  gentleman  said  to  me  today,  “We  would  like 
to  grant  to  the  people  of  the  City  of  Chicago  municipal 
ownership  if  we  only  had  the  money,  but  where  are  we 
going  to  get  the  money?”  You  just  study  the  history  of 
the  public  service  corporations  of  this  city  a  little  and 
the  other  big  wealthy  corporations  of  this  city,  and  study 
the  way  they  have  been  evading  their  taxes  during  the 
last  twenty  years,  and  you  will  find  that  if  the  public  of¬ 
ficials  of  the  City  of  Chicago  had  done  their  duty  and 
had  done  the  work  that  these  school  teachers  of  Chicago 
did,  you  would  have  had  a  mighty  full  treasury.  (Ap¬ 
plause.) 

We  could  have  taken  over  these  street  car  companies 
without  a  word,  and  this  excuse  that  we  haven't  got  the 
money  would  never  have  been  heard. 

I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  another  thing.  We 
have  had  an  object  lesson  right  in  this  city  recently,  the 
weakness — not  to  say  folly — of  allowing  the  public  serv¬ 
ice  of  this  city  to  be  performed  by  a  private  corporation. 
You  have  seen  a  strike  of  the  street  car  men  on  the  south 
side. 


36 


Now  I  hope  that  none  oi  you  gentlemen  will  think 
that  because  I  have  been  one  of  the  attorneys  for  the 
strikers  that  1  am  prejudiced,  for  that  reason,  against 
the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company.  I  am  not.  I  think 
the  general  conduct  of  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Com¬ 
pany  has  been  as  good,  but  no  better,  than  the  conduct  of 
the  other  public  service  corporations  in  this  city.  They 
have  simply  performed  their  duties  when  they  could  not 
help  it.  (Laughter  and  applause.)  And  that  is  what 
they  have  been  doing  all  these  years.  We  have  seen  the 
whole  south  side  of  the  city  denied  transportation.  You 
have  seen  one-half  of  the  police  force  of  this  city  used  to 
assist  these  people — the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company 
— in  running  their  cars.  You  have  seen  an  Honorable 
Committee  of  this  Council  and  the  Mayor  work  day  and 
night  and  beg  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company  to  set¬ 
tle  this  strike  peaceably.  I  will  leave  it  to  that  commit¬ 
tee  themselves  to  say  whether  or  not  the  men  that  went 
before  it,  representing  the  employes  of  the  company, 
were  not  fair  from  start  to  finish,  and  were  not  ready 
to  do  anything  that  was  fair  and  honorable  to  settle  that 
strike.  And  who  stood  in  the  way  of  arbitration?  The 
men  offered  arbitration  from  the  start,  and  when  the 
State  Board  of  Arbitration  intervened  and  said,  “In  the 
name  of  the  law  and  for  the  peace  of  the  state,  we  want 
you  to  settle  this  matter  amicably,”  the  men  said,  “Yes, 
we  will,”  but  this  corporation  said  “No,  sir.”  They 
spurned  every  effort  at  conciliation  and  it  was  not  until 
the  Mayor  and  City  Council  most  persistently  insisted 
and  demanded  that  it  be  settled  peaceably  that  the  com¬ 
pany  agreed  to  anything  like  fair  terms. 

If  the  Chicago  City  Railway  Company  would  demean 
itself  before  the  people  of  this  city,  and  before  the  Mayor 
and  the  Council  of  this  city  in  that  way,  at  a  time  when 
its  franchise  had  expired,  and  when  it  was  asking  for  a 


37 


new  one,  what  would  it  do  if  granted  another  twenty- 
year  franchise?  (Applause.) 

Now  there  is  something  here  that  I  want  to  call  your 
attention  to.  In  one  of  the  schedules  added  to  this  ordi¬ 
nance,  on  page  69,  is  just  what  the  people  of  Chicago 
must  expect  if  this  franchise  is  granted.  Now  this  is  the 
statement  of  the  company  itself.  It  is  its  own  idea  of 
what  is  going  to  happen  in  the  future — if  it  gets  a  fran¬ 
chise.  It  estimates  an  expenditure  of  $2,000,000  in  twen¬ 
ty  years  “To  provide  for  strikes  or  avoidance  of  strikes," 
averaging  $100,000  a  year  on  that  account.  It  has  figured 
up  every  year  what  is  likely  to  occur  and  it  is  likely  to 
expend.  That  is  five  per  cent  a  year  on  a  two  million 
dollar  investment  that  the  company  itself  estimates.  They 
estimate  they  will  have  to  pay  this  out  on  account  of 
strikes.  Do  you  wonder  that  the  laboring  people  of  Chi¬ 
cago  are  a  little  bit  leery  about  giving  this  company  this 
ordinance  ? 

I  am  not  here  to  say  that  municipal  ownership  in 
Chicago  is  an  easy  thing.  It  is  not  an  easy  thing. 
Very  few  things  that  are  important  and  very  valuable 
are  easy  to  get.  The  Almighty  did  not  put  gold  on  trees 
or  scatter  it  along  the  highways.  He  put  it  in  the  rocks 
and  in  the  ravines  and  covered  it  up  so  that  it  is  hard  to 
get.  And  so  it  is  with  everything  that  is  valuable.  You 
have  got  to  work  for  it.  It  takes  skill,  it  takes  labor,  it 
takes  industry,  it  takes  ingenuity,  and  it  takes  good  old 
fashioned  honesty  to  get  anything  that  is  real  good  in 
this  world.  And  it  takes  that  to  bring  about  municipal 
ownership.  I  repeat,  I  know  it  is  hard  to  get  municipal 
ownership.  It  was  hard  to  obtain  American  liberty.  In 
1775  and  ’76  there  were  people  who  said,  “We  cannot 
fight  Great  Britain,  we  cannot  fight  England,  we  have  to 
remain  subjects,”  but  Patrick  Henry  said,  “They  tell  us, 


/ 


38 


sir,  that  we  are  weak,  unable  to  cope  with  so  formidable 
an  adversary,  but,"  he  said,  “when  shall  we  be  stronger? 
Will  it  be  the  next  week  or  the  next  year,  or  will  it  be 
when  the  enemy  has  bound  us  hand  and  foot?  Shall  we 
gather  strength  by  irresolution  and  inaction?"  “No," 
he  said,  “thanks  to  God  we  are  not  weak,"  and  he  ap¬ 
pealed  to  the  God  of  battles,  and  his  appeal  was  heard. 
And  this  people,  when  only  three  million  strong,  went  to 
war  and  they  fought  eight  long  years  for  your  liberty 
and  my  liberty  and  the  liberty  of  our  children  and  their 
descendants.  Just  so  here.  Are  the  people  of  Chicago 
today  free?  Are  they  free  when  they  have  these  public 
service  corporations  on  every  hand,  conducting  them¬ 
selves  as  I  have  shown  you,  and  I  haven’t  shown  you 
half,  what  these  street  car  companies  have  been  doing. 
The  people  made  these  corporations.  They  are  our  ozvn 
corporations.  And  they  have  become  so  powerful,  so 
strong,  so  arrogant  as  to  have  us  practically  in  their 
grasp.  Now  is  an  opportunity  to  rid  ourselves  of  some 
of  them,  at  least  keep  ourselves  from  longer  remaining 
in  their  power.  Do  you  think  it  is  a  mistake  on  our  part, 
on  the  part  of  these  laboring  people  of  Chicago,  to  come 
to  you  and  ask  you  to  do  something  now  when  it  is  prac¬ 
ticable  ?  Do  you  wonder  that  they  are  surprised  and  mor¬ 
tified  that  valuable  months  have  been  spent  in  producing 
a  document  like  that  (referring  to  the  printed  ordinance) 
for  a  street  car  company  that  has  never  respected  your 
wishes,  nor  the  wishes  of  this  community,  or  the  laws  of 
the  state  or  the  laws  of  the  city  ? 

Now  I  was  going  to  read  you  something*  from  this 
Mueller  law,  but  I  will  not  take  the  time  to  do  it.  You, 
no  doubt,  have  read  that  law — at  least  I  presume  so.  I 
don’t  think  a  member  of  the  City  Council  of  Chicago 
would  endorse  a  measure  that  he  had  not  read.  (Ap¬ 
plause.) 


39 


f 


I  know  it  is  not  going  to  be  an  easy  thing  to  get 
municipal  ownership  out  of  that  law  or  any  other  law 
that  the  legislature  might  pass.  1  know  that  you  will 
meet  obstacles  on  every  hand.  I  know  that  you  will 
have  the  united  opposition,  not  only  of  the  street  railway 
corporations  of  this  city,  but  of  all  the  great  public 
service  corporations  of  this  city,  of  all  the  great  public 
service  corporations  of  this  country,  yes,  of  all  the  great 
public  service  corporations  of  Europe — they  will  all  unite. 
They  have  fastened  themselves  on  the  people;  they  have 
grown  enormously  rich;  they  count  their  wealth  by  mil¬ 
lions,  yea,  by  billions;  and  they  know  how  to  use  their 
wealth.  They  believe  themselves  omnipotent. 

I  need  not  tell  you  gentlemen  what  these  corporations 
have  done,  for  every  well  informed  citizen  in  Chicago 
knows  what  our  own  corporations  have  done.  There  is 
much  complaint  about  corruption  in  the  nation,  in  the 
State,  in  the  counties,  many  of  them,  and  in  the  cities  of 
this  country.  Who  has  been  behind  all  this  corruption? 
Where  did  it  come  from  ?  Who  is  it  that  corrupts  State 
Boards  of  Equalization?  Who  it  is  that  corrupts  state 
legislatures  ?  Who  is  it  that  wrongly  influences  city 
councils  in  some  places?  It  is  these  public  service  cor¬ 
porations.  They  have  the  money.  Think  of  it — the  cor¬ 
porations  the  people  have  made,  take  a  little  of  the  money 
that  they  have  gotten  from  the  people,  and  then  they  cor¬ 
rupt  the  servants  of  the  people  and  continue  their  power 
and  increase  their  strength.  If  that  is  not  bondage,  what 
is  it?  If  that  is  not  slavery,  what  is  it?  If  that  is  not 
something  that  every  honest  man  ought  to  want  to  get  rid 
of,  what  in  the  name  of  heaven  would  he  want  to  escape?* 

I  want  to  tell  you,  gentlemen,  that  this  is  a  critical 
period  in  the  history  of  Chicago  and  in  the  history  of 
this  country,  for  there  is  no  city  in  America  that  is  situ- 


40 


ated  like  Chicago.  Already  across  the  seas,  in  monarch¬ 
ies,  in  governments  not  of  the  people  like  ours,  the 
people  are  taking  over  to  themselves  these  public  service 
corporations.  1  think  it  would  do  the  membership  of  this 
committee  good  to  take  a  little  trip  across  the  briney 
deep  this  winter.  I  think  it  would  do  my  friend  Aider- 
man  Mavor  good  to  go  back  to  his  native  heath,  Scot¬ 
land,  and  visit  Glasgow  and  investigate  how  it  was  that 
Glasgow  was  enabled  to  bring  about  municipal  owner¬ 
ship  of  her  public  utilities.  And  then  visit  Liverpool  and 
Leeds  and  see  how  they  do  it.  Find  out  the  obstacles 
they  had  to  overcome  and  how  they  overcame  them. 
You  won't  find  that  it  was  easy.  Yet  they  ac¬ 
complished  it,  and  I  think  that  what  Scotland  and 
England,  what  Glasgow,  Liverpool  and  Leeds  can  ac¬ 
complish,  the  City  of  Chicago  can  accomplish.  I  don’t 
think  Chicago  is  willing  to  take  second  place  to  any 
municipality  on  this  earth.  (Applause.)  Did  you  ever 
know  Chicago  to  undertake  in  dead  earnest  to  do  any¬ 
thing  that  she  did  not  do?  Do  you  suppose  that  in  1892, 
and  prior  to  that  time,  if  the  people  of  Chicago  had  said, 
if  the  City  Council  and  the  Mayor  and  public  citizens  has 
said,  “YVe  can‘t  get  the  fair  here,  we  can’t  handle  it,” 
that  we  would  ever  have  gotten  the  World’s  Fair  and 
have  shown  to  all  the  world  the  grandest,  the  most  beauti¬ 
ful  spectacle  that  was  ever  produced  for  the  eye  of  man? 

Do  you  think  that  in  1871  when  the  city  was  burned, 
when  the  heart  was  burnt  out  of  it,  if  the  people  of  Chi¬ 
cago  had  said,  “Oh,  we  cannot  rebuild,  we  can’t  do  that,” 
that  Chicago  ever  would  have  been  rebuilt  and  have  be¬ 
come  the  splendid  city  that  she  is  ? 

I  want  to  tell  you,  my  friends,  that  Chicago  can  have 
municipal  ownership.  (Applause.)  She  can’t  get  it  to¬ 
morrow,  she  can't  get  it  next  week.  She  can’t  get  it  next 


4i 


year.  She  may  not  even  have  succeeded  fully  in  getting 
it  within  the  next  five  years,  but  I  want  to  say  to  you  that 
if  she  does  not  go  to  work,  if  our  public  officials,  our 
Mayor  and  our  City  Council  do  not  go  to  work  and  try  to 
get  it,  she  never  zvill  get  it.  That  is  certain.  The  matter 
is  in  your  hands  absolutely.  There  never,  in  my  judg¬ 
ment.  has  come  such  an  opportunity  before  to  any  body 
of  men  on  this  earth  as  has  come  to  the  City  Council  of 
the  City  of  Chicago  at  this  time.  (Applause.)  I  want 
to  tell  you  that  municipal  ownership  in  the  municipali¬ 
ties  of  the  United  States  is  coming.  Tt  is  going  to  come 
because  the  people  know  what  they  want,  because  the 
common  people,  and  especialv  the  toilers  of  this  coun¬ 
try,  know  what  they  want.  If  some  of  the  business  men, 
some  of  the  “better  citizens,”  so  called,  have  not  been 
studying  this  question  and  informing  themselves  upon 
this  question,  the  toilers  of  this  country  have  been  study¬ 
ing  it.  They  are  the  ones  who  have  felt  the  strong  arm 
of  these  public  service  corporations.  They  know  what 
they  are.  They  know  their  tyranny,  thev  know  their  in¬ 
justice,  they  know  they  worship  the  God  of  money  and 
nothing  else;  that  they  respect  neither  man,  woman  nor 

child.  That  all  they  want  is  money,  and  that  they  have 

~  *  ~ 

been  grinding  that  out  of  the  toilers  of  this  country. 
They  have  made  up  their  minds  that  thev  have  suffered 
long  enough  from  these  corporations.  Thev  say,  “that 
this  is  our  country:  this  is  a  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people  and  for  the  people — theoretically.  We 
have  made  up  our  minds  that  we  are  going  to  make  it 
such  in  fact ”  (Applause.) 

The  opportunity  to  lead  the  way  has  come  to  Chicago ; 
and  is  our  City  Council  and  our  Mayor  now  going  to 
say,  “We  can’t  do  it f  Are  we  going  to  surrender  like 
old  Philadelphia,  and  let  the  public  service  corporations 
run  us?”  If  so,  the  next  thing  you  will  see  will  be  that 


42 


some  corporation  will  come  here  and  want  to  buy  your 
waterworks,  and  you  will  sell  them.  They  will  come 
here  and  they  will  want  to  take  away  from  you  your  elec¬ 
tric  lighting  plant  that  you  already  have.  They  did  that 
with  old  Philadelphia,  with  regard  to  her  gas  works — 
that  once  grand  city,  where*  the  cradle  of  liberty 
was  rocked.  I  tell  you,  my  friends,  you  have  a  grand 
opportunity.  It  is  such  an  opportunity  that  will  never 
again  in  your  lifetimes,  in  my  judgment,  come  to  a  City 
Council.  I  would  like  to  be  a  member  of  this  City  Coun¬ 
cil.  Not  that  I  am  any  wiser  than  any  of  you  gentlemen, 
not  that  I  am  anv  more  loval  than  anv  of  vou  gentlemen. 
But  I  would  like  to  be  a  member  of  a  body  of  public  ser¬ 
vants  who  had  the  intelligence,  who  had  the  honesty,  who 
had  the  opportunity  and  tenacity  of  purpose  to  serve  the 
people  by  establishing  municipal  ownership  in  the  City  of 
Chicago.  (Applause.) 

I  have  made  this  talk  under  great  difficulties.  I  have 
not  had  the  time  to  make  the  preparation  to  discuss  this 
ordinance  in  detail  as  much  as  I  should  like.  I  came 
practically  from  a  sick  bed  to  talk  here  this  afternoon 
upon  this  subject.  There  is  a  great  deal  more  to  say, 
but  others  are  to  follow.  The  other  side  of  this  question 
is  to  be  discussed,  as  I  understand  it,  and  I  expect  to  ask 
to  be  heard  again  before  this  debate  closes. 

In  closing  now  I  want  to  say  that  the  Mayor  and  the 
City  Council  of  Chicago  for  the  years  1903  and  ’04  are 
destined  to  immortality.  Whatever  your  conduct  shall 
be  it  will  immortalize  the  body  that  represents  in  the 
Council  at  this  time  the  people  of  Chicago-.  Whether  it 
shall  be  immortal  glory  or  not  depends  upon  yon. 
( Applause. ) 


